Tipping Your Hand
by cloudychelc
Summary: Reading up on palmistry, Lucy thinks she could read the Prof without an issue, but Potty has other plans.


I, by no means know anything deep about palmistry (I read one article and thought yep this is it). I just wanted an excuse for them to hold hands. No, I also don't have a hand fetish, shut up.

Also an incredibly cheesy, slightly out of character Lucy, and most definitely another stupid idea that I thought of while working on another draft.

* * *

"You know, Prof, I read in a magazine that your hands say a lot about your personality. It's called palmistry." Lucy chirped one late evening in the Mystery Room, the moonlight bleeding through the blinds and the only source of light being the lamp on his desk. From his cuppa, he glanced up to Lucy with a confused look, but it quickly set to a resigned one. He knew that Lucy was trying to make conversation - as she always did when the reports started getting towards the home stretch and quite tiresome - and it could have been about anything, but palmistry? He leaned against his chair as Lucy placed her pen down. "I ended up researching some more afterwards and I could probably tell you something about you."

"Don't believe in such trivial matters Lucy, it certainly does not say anything about personality." Potty scoffed, taking the reins in chiding his childish assistant. There were probably more violent manners he could extrude in doing so, but his tired demeanor caused him to merely sound snarky. "They're trades of fake psychics and are hardly credible."

"But aren't you a tad bit curious in what exactly it is? I'm almost finished with this report, surely we can take a moment to breathe." Potty glanced at the clock and gave a small harrumph as his answer, seeing that it was getting late. They should both be in separate flats, preparing for the day ahead of them. But they - Potty and Placid, in this case - supposed, for Lucy, listening to her ramble about something spiritual that he didn't believe in was a small price to pay to spend more time with her. Giving out a sigh, he outstretched his hand for her to take, palm up for her to see.

Tentative hands touching his own, he could really feel how soft she was. She probably moisturized everyday, with some sweet smelling fragrance he deduced it was some combination of vanilla and some other smell. Her fingers ran through his palms a couple of times, her face in complete concentration.

"So what did you learn?" Placid inquired as she seemed to finish her observations but did not release his hand. Lucy did not answer his question immediately, but rather, she was restraining a giggle. "Well? Spit it out already."

"Prof, you clearly don't use lotion for your hands." She giggled and it turned to a full on laugh as the Prof's face turned a bright cherry red.

"What kind of palmistry is that?!" Potty barked, having the immediate desire to snatch his hand away, but Placid kept it there.

"Well, I was trying, Prof, but I got distracted by the texture of your hands! How is your hand so rough? I mean, it feels like a piece of sandpaper! It's like you worked in the farms!" She trailed her fingers from his wrist back to the tips of his fingers, brushing lightly against them.

"Well, I moisturize!" Placid grumbled, "...to an extent when I remember to do so. Why are yours so soft? They are clearly softer than an infant's own!" Potty threw back, but in hindsight, it was much more like a compliment than an insult. But it was the only thing he could think of at the moment.

"Well, that's because I use different products." She responded, smirking towards her mentor. The Prof's eyes narrowed and looked down at his slender hands, which were still in her small ones.

_"You're thinking of something. What are you planning?" _Placid asked, eyebrows raised to the other fellow within his body. When Potty had plans, they had the tendency to be a fifty-fifty when it came to them being _good _ones.

**"You'll see."**

"Well, enough of that rubbish, Baker. Would you like to know something about me that nobody knows about?" He glided towards her with his chair, subsequently bumping knees. It was probably the fewer times where they were breaking each other's personal space, enough so it was crossing another territory.

She was no longer smirking, that was for sure.

"Sure, Prof. What can ya do?" She asked as he changed their positions, to where the Prof was now holding her hands in his.

"I could measure your heart rate without touching your wrists or any of the regular indicators." His voice was at a bare whisper now, just enough for her to hear. She cocked an eyebrow up, skepticism all over her face.

"I know you think palmistry is rubbish, Prof, but I highly doubt you could do that." Lucy responded and Potty touched her palms, in a similar manner to which she had before with him. He noted the slight tremble of her hands, but did not comment to prevent her from turning defensive.

"Quite frankly, Baker, there are other things that contribute to sensing how high one's heart rate may be and vice versa." Lucy watched intently as one hand remained holding hers while the other came closer to her cheek, finally resting itself on the skin. "The way someone is looking with their eyes, the trembling that they be subconsciously doing, the hitching of one's breath, or perhaps just...how they react without prompt."

"But those aren't ways to calculate heart rate, they're just determinators of their internal thoughts turned to reactions, aren't they?" Lucy questioned, but didn't go further as to ask his intentions. But with his hand caressing her cheek with his thumb, it clearly had some sort of effect on her. Placid jumped in, deciding that he should have a say, to some degree, of what was transpiring.

"That's quite correct, Baker. But such behavior is typically correlated with an accelerated heart rate. So if I had to guess, I'd say yours is _quite high_." Bingo. She was practically liquid underneath his ministrations, even if they were so minimal to the point where he barely had to do anything at all. He lowered his hand from her cheek, celebrating a mini victory internally.

"And yours isn't?" In a rare defiance, she collected herself and managed to respond. "If your methods work on me, surely they'll work on you, right? If we are gonna talk about correlation and all that."

Now he was no longer smirking.

"That depends." Placid responded, even if he really had no idea how far this was going. It was how it always was, wasn't it? Potty doing something and Placid reacting and vice versa, whatever the situation may be. The other personality always had to pick up the pieces of what was already transpiring with little to no segue.

But with Lucy, it was always a wild card of uncertainty simply because they never wanted to overstep the boundaries (well, Placid never wanted to) that were placed there professionally and for their own good.

Sometimes they wished they could deduce what was going on with her with barely any information from her end. Sure, they could blabber on about how her heart rate is quite high or some nonsense like that, but does that really prove much without verbal confirmations?

**"This is the most ridiculous game of cat and mouse I have ever seen."**

_"It was your idea."_

**"And you hijacked it! This was going to be a little fun game to test her reactions and now you've made it risky attempt to see where she stands. I thought _you _were the one to tell me not to go too fast?"**

_"Shut up, you psychotic hothead!" _Placid snapped, already frustrated at the predicament that Potty had left them in.

**"Who's the hothead now?"**

"On what?" Lucy questioned.

"How well you can read me, Baker." Potty butted in, as certainly he could keep his composure way better than some fake who was already seeping through in frustration. Though with each slight touch from the pad of her index finger certainly made him take several sharp inhales of breath.

"Aren't you showing what you described earlier though?" Lucy finally responded, her smirk returning.

"Oh?" Placid watched intently as she fawned over his hand, trying to remain nonchalant in his attitude.

"The intake of breath and the shifting of your eyes, right?" He gave a smallest confirmation of nods and he hated how he didn't know what to say. There had to be some witty rejoinder that he could say, something to break the ice.

_"This was a stupid idea."_

**"Be patient. We may still save it from your meddling."**

_"I didn't meddle. I merely gave myself a say in the predicament."_

**"In other words, you still _meddled_ with my work."**

"So, I'm missing something, by process of elimination." Lucy finally concluded. The tension in the air was incredibly palpable, they wondered if Lucy could feel it too. But as he was focusing on the tension and his own argument in his head, he barely realized that Lucy was leaning in closer in small increments, her fingers slowly making their way to his wrist,

"Yes, very astute of you, Lucy." Placid murmured, still arguing with himself inside, "On the mark, as usual."

_"Your work? Are you calling her your work?"_

**"No, you simpleton. I'm talking about the situation. I'm easing towards the next step."**

_"Hmph. As if. I'd say it's the other way around."_

"Prof?" She brought them back to reality with her meek voice, Placid grabbing the helm first.

"Yes, Lucy?" Placid asked, suddenly aware of their proximity to the point where he could feel her breath on his nose.

"I hope I deduced right." In a surprise surge of bravery from her part, she pecked him lightly on the lips, then pulled herself away from him. His eyes widened, cheeks turning into a furious shade of maroon, enough to rival his hair when he was Potty Prof. "Looks like I did."

"B-Baker!" Potty stuttered, "I..."

"Reaction without prompt. Your heart rate is also _unusually high_, Prof. I counted." Despite her own flustered cheeks, she turned back to the desk and continued working as if nothing had transpired in the last 10 to 15 minutes. She had a small smirk on her lips and her own bright red cheeks, though continued to write on the paperwork without another word.

_"We trapped ourselves into that, didn't we?" _Placid sighed, moving to also continue his share of paperwork, but his handwriting was still incredibly shaky from a bit of shock.

**"For once, I agree with you."**

_"I suppose that's as much confirmation we shall get, for now."_

**"Who is to say that it shall stop there?"**

Despite Placid's firm no, he didn't stop Potty from taking things to several higher levels that Lucy seemed very alright with. Besides, the paperwork could surely wait a little longer.

They did have all night, after all.


End file.
